Courses

The Japanese Language Program offers a four-year curriculum in the Japanese language as well as Japanese literature courses.

The Program maintains a five days-per-week instruction for the initial four-semester sequence of Japanese language courses (JAPN 10A, 20B, 30A and 40B) and four days-per-week for Japanese 105A and 105B. Through these intensive courses, Brandeis students gain strong Japanese language skills and understanding of its culture. In JAPN 120A and 120B (fourth year Japanese courses), students will read Japanese literary texts from the contemporary period in order to further develop their Japanese language skills while appreciating Japanese literature and deepening their understanding of the Japanese culture and society.

The four-semester sequence of Japanese courses 10A through 40B, or its equivalent, fulfills the language requirement for the East Asian Studies major and minor.

2018–2019 Courses

Placement

All students who have studied Japanese previously (high school, university, self-study, at home) and wish to continue studying Japanese at Brandeis must take a placement test to determine their level of proficiency so that the instructor can place them in the appropriate class. The test will be scheduled during the first week of the semester so that there is sufficient time to choose and register for an appropriate class. Please contact Professor Hisae Fujiwara when you arrive on campus in the fall.

SAT II test scores in Japanese do not satisfy the foreign language requirement.

Japanese program alumni have developed professional interests in Japan in fields such as translation and interpretation, software development, business, art, and international relations, and many have participated in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program sponsored by the Japanese government.

Alumni have also entered graduate studies in such fields as law, economics, politics, history, East Asian Studies, fine art, computer science and medicine at such institutions as the London School of Economics, Cambridge University (UK), Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Duke, Columbia, Michigan, Stanford, etc.